1st Formations charity partnership
Since 2012, the WONDER Foundation has been striving to provide underprivileged women and girls in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa with quality education and training. Their mission is to give them opportunities, life choices, and personal development to help them thrive and exit poverty for good.
Over the years, WONDER has worked with 30 partners in 23 countries to equip more than 100,000 women and girls with wisdom, confidence, and livelihood skills.
fundraising
events
hours spent
volunteering
children and
families supported
donated by direct donations
and fundraising events
Why we work with WONDER
At 1st Formations, we wanted to partner with a charity that could help us focus our efforts on one area with a global reach and allow us to make the biggest impact possible.
As champions of gender and employment equality, we partnered with WONDER to help empower women and girls all over the world, improve their quality of life, and inspire them with exciting life prospects.
Also, with one of WONDER’s key pillars being sustainable employment, this seemed a natural fit for us as a sustainable company. Our aligned values mean we can help WONDER find safe and suitable work for women and girls.
Our objectives
We became an official corporate partner of WONDER in 2022. Together, we set the following objectives:
- To further the aims of the WONDER Foundation. To focus on one partnership and maximise the efficiency of our charitable donations and activities to the most deserving causes.
- To engage and educate all staff on WONDER's work, the challenges faced, and the opportunities to help.
- To develop an altruistic understanding without our staff, which they can continue to develop throughout their career.
- To promote the work of the WONDER Foundation to our customers through social media and our website, encouraging education, engagement, and donations.
![Portrait of 3 schoolgirls from the Colegio Junkabal in Guatemala City, wearing white t-shirts, and red and black tracksuit jackets.](https://1stformations.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets/live/images/2023/wonder-foundation/wonder-foundation--donations.png)
Donations
1st Formations has donated £30,000 to WONDER since December 2022. These contributions are being used to directly fund the scholarship of girls at the Colegio Junkabal on the margins of Guatemala City’s huge rubbish dump, providing formal education. It is also helping provide vocational training for mothers, offering them better and safer employment.
![Portrait of Dominic Bird standing with a pool cue in 1st Formations’ Games Room after winning a fundraising pool tournament.](https://1stformations.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets/live/images/2023/wonder-foundation/wonder-foundation--fundraising.png)
Fundraising
We host regular charity events in our offices, encouraging staff to get involved and raise money for WONDER. Some of our recent activities include pool tournaments and Christmas Jumper Day. We also launched a fundraising tool on our internal staff portal, which allows team members to make personal donations through their profiles.
![Group of four 1st Formations’ staff members working at a table with laptops during a WONDER Foundation volunteering day at The Baytree Centre in Brixton.](https://1stformations.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets/live/images/2023/wonder-foundation/wonder-foundation--volunteering.png)
Volunteering
In 2023, 1st Formations staff took part in two very enjoyable and rewarding volunteering days at The Baytree Centre, in Brixton. Our team helped WONDER with their corporate strategy through promotional video design, philanthropic research and how AI tools can help improve engagement opportunities in diaspora communities.